Forum - View topicInterview: Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation Director and Producer
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Gem-Bug
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What are you even on about here? 
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helln00
Posts: 106 |
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The only thing I can think about regarding that making viewers less uncomfortable comment is "[expletive] hell, if that is less uncomfortable what the hell was the LN like"
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2892 |
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nah, that is just lip service.
they totally made the anime more uncomfortable than the novel was. if you want an example of making the anime less uncomfortable, there is shield hero with its now milquetoast protagonist, or even this seasons cells at work black with its elimination of nudity. shield hero brings back memories because i remember talking with the ann reviewer back then on how bland they made him and how the wn version of him was far mow malicious, he would have been as disliked as rudy had they kept his wn personality. a random note on statistics is that a truly random set of 1k or so is statistically significative, the keyword here being "truly random". back to the interview, i am super interested on how are they going to portray his voice change now that he will go thru puberty, will they wait for q time skip to give him a teenager voice the another time skip later the adult one or will we keep child rudeus until the second time skip? i just hope they keep sugita, i have been watching random haruhi clips and found particularly amusing the one where haruhi calls him an isekaijin. |
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TexZero
Posts: 586 |
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So do many works of fiction. In fact many of the most popular works of fiction often have descriptions or passages of sex, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, or portions that are deemed unnaceptable by modern society. Only one of them draws more ire than the other and it's often not the one that's more graphic in nature. |
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Violet Park
Posts: 115 |
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In Mushuko Tensei 1) the mc and his dad are worse than creeps 2) their actions are minimized or straight up played for laughs and 3) we are supposed to cheer on them getting together with their victims. Other works at least have the decency of showing sexual assault as a bad thing. |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2462 |
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Maybe it would help to use a concrete example; TexZero mentions GRRM as a supposed example of the same debate. But GRRM didn't write sexual assault or unhealthy sexual relationships into Game of Thrones in a way that's framed as funny or praiseworthy; you don't watch any of the Cersei-Jaime scenes, and certainly don't watch any of the Ramsay-Theon or Ramsay-Sansa scenes, and think: "Haha! What a hilarious scene. Some really great sexual humor." GoT made it abundantly clear that those scenes were meant to be uncomfortable or repulsive, depending, and the relationships portrayed in them unhealthy in the extreme. (For a second example: the same thing is true of Scum's Wish, which was often mentioned in the main Mushoku talkback thread in a similar manner to Tex mentioning GRRM here. It was less extreme than GRRM's work, but, throughout, it was also very clear that we were watching unhealthy trainwrecks for love lives, and that it did not want us to feel positively about them.)
Mushoku doesn't do that (at least not in the first 3-4 episodes; I forget when exactly I stopped watching). It consistently portrays Rudy's unwanted sexual advances and pedophilia as gags, generally presented with a wink and a grin, and maybe a bit of 'hilarious' tsundere violence on top of it. Thematically, Mushoku also doesn't seem to understand that these are problematic parts of his character; it treats Rudy's central problem as just not having tried hard enough in his former life. And, I mean, sure -- clearly, he had some motivation issues, and some deep social insecurities. But he also has a deeply unhealthy view of sex, with a predilection towards children and a lack of respect for other peoples' wishes. Those are also major problems, and should also be part of his character that has to be shattered in order for him to re-build himself into a character whose 'redemption' feels in any way earned. But, as is, Mushoku doesn't even recognize these as problems. It rewards Rudy with a second chance at life in a world where 'trying a bit harder' rapidly turns him into a magical prodigy. Because of this, it is difficult to take his story seriously as a redemption arc. It looks more like a particularly incompetent or base power fantasy. A story of re-building and growing doesn't really work when some of the most reprehensible parts of your main character's character are misclassified as harmless quirks, rather than central problems for him to address in order to flourish as a person. At the risk of belaboring the point: the 'harmless quirk' in Mushoku's case is not "being a pervert" (which would be a genuinely fine quirk that can be written in a way which is harmless). It's "being a pedophile, and not caring about other peoples' physical or private boundaries" (which is not harmless, and is a central character flaw, to put it mildly). I think it's possible to write a story where Rudy's still a really horny dude at the end of the redemption narrative, but has just learned to be a horny dude in ways that are respectful of others and not directed towards human children. That's a hard story to write well (mostly because writing an MC who's a pedophile makes it difficult for people to empathize with him very much, and it becomes hard to believe he can or should be able to just 'grow as a person' and stop wanting to have sex with little kids), but the trouble here isn't that Mushoku failed in writing it; it's that it didn't even try to write it, because it confuses "being really horny and sexually unfulfilled" with "being sexually aggressive, ignoring boundaries, and targeting human children or people who look like human children" (and, to try to forestall the inevitable: no, the "but she was really a 9,000 year old dragon your honor" defense doesn't make any of this any better; it just makes it look like Mushoku wants to help Rudy not have to recognize his pedophilia as a problem in the first place, and so custom-built a world where there are convenient excuses for it). |
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Snowcat
Posts: 190 |
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@NeverConvex: you should compare to "Tatoeba Last Dungeon" instead which use the same kind of humor but gender reversed. It didn't cause the same reactions.
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NeverConvex
Subscriber Posts: 2462 |
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I didn't watch that, so I'm afraid I can't talk about it as an example. (EDIT: Although, I feel I should also point out that I'm giving my perspective on Mushoku's problems, not trying to explain the fandom as a whole's reaction. My perspective lines up pretty well with several other folks in this thread, I think, and with the criticisms I've seen posted here on ANN, for the most part, but there may very well be people who disliked it for other reasons, of course.)
Last edited by NeverConvex on Sat Apr 10, 2021 11:14 am; edited 1 time in total |
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db999
Posts: 314 |
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I don't really like it when people bring in another work as an attempt to dismiss criticism of a story with, well this other story also does it and a ton of people love it and there isn’t a whole controversy over it, so why is this series getting dumped on. That's not to say that comparing one work to another can't be helpful in making comparisons and trying to get your point across. But using it to shut down or dismiss any criticisms towards a series is just bad faith criticism and shows an unwillingness to discuss the actual problems a story has. Honestly, the comparison to Game of Thrones doesn’t even work. I’ve seen, and read, Game of Thrones, and watched all of Mushoku Tensei, and it doesn’t work for several reasons. The first being that Game of Thrones is controversial. There have been criticisms leveled at that series for its violence, sexual violence towards women, being sexist and racist, so to pretend that the work isn’t controversial isn’t even true. Second, there are no scenes of characters being perverted or trying to sexually assault someone that is played for laughs or dismissed as being not a very big deal. Third, none of the points of view characters, in the first book at least, attempt to sexually assault anyone.
I like Mushoku Tensei, but I’m not going to ignore the criticisms that have been levied at the show and attempt to defend it. Especially since I agree with most of the criticisms. The main character's actions and thoughts towards kids are a constant negative throughout the narrative of the episodes thus far. I really liked the first four episodes and in those episodes, he was constantly improving, and his perversions seemed to be disappearing. For example, his relationship with Sylphie is treated by the show as unhealthy. Paul specifically mentions this as one of the reasons why he doesn’t want him and Sylphie to go to school together and why he sends Rudy away. But then they ruin it with the second arc. Just when I thought the character was getting better he does the same type of stuff with Eris, and he doesn’t suffer any negative consequences for it. The biggest problem with this element of his character is that you could remove it wholesale from the story and it would change absolutely nothing about his character development or the plot. For example, that scene in episode 8 could be removed completely. spoiler[The main character tries to rape Eris, she fights him off, he stops,] and then in the very next scene, the story continues as if nothing has happened. If there aren’t going to be any negative consequences for it, like having his relationship with Eris be destroyed, either forever or at least for a long time, then the only thing it does is ruin his character arc. The problem is that not only that the pedophilia could have been removed easily from the story, but that it would make the series infinitely better. I really do sympathize with the staff of the anime, because they can’t remove any of that stuff. Any staff that was going to try to bring this story over would have been between a rock and a hard place. If they don’t remove this stuff we get what is happening now. If they try to minimize it or remove it tons of fans of the series will complain, just look at any of the anime adaptations that change the story or cut out scenes from the source that have been reacted to by the fans. Honestly, I think financially the studio made the decision that would work out the best for them. Sure people like me will be disappointed in the show, or maybe even drop it, but the fans of the source material will likely be happy. |
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NeverConvex
Subscriber Posts: 2462 |
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It isn't "things of a sexual nature". It's pedophilia and sexual assault. What examples of female characters expressing sexual interest in children or sexually assaulting other characters are being ignored or glorified by those of us critical of Mushoku? What acts of genocide? |
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TexZero
Posts: 586 |
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You just gonna ignore how the cast exploits Rujerd mercilessly slaughtering most of his race ? You're also going to outright ignore that if the shoe is on the other foot and the female characters are creeps it's never called out...Like okay. We totally didn't have shows with female characters that sexually assualt, harrass or otherwise cross societal boundaries. Scums Wish and Citrus come directly to mind. The conversation is never handled with grace as could be seen by the deletion of the post you've quoted. When people bring up the apples to oranges coverage of horrible acts one side always gets more coverage. It's clear which one too. Violence no big deal, Sexual acts nope that's the real sticking point. Especially if it's male perpatrated. |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 2999 Location: Email for assistance only |
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We already dealt with the Scum's Wish boogeyman in another thread (the point of that series is everyone is effed up).
People DEFINITELY criticized consent issues in Citrus. I think a more apt answer would be like, Uzamaid! anime#20845 But I don't know if anyone really watched it? Most of our critics who've spoken up about why they don't like Mushoku Tensei did the same for UzaMaid: http://4NN.cx/.137781 |
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Mami-kouga
Posts: 209 |
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Not touching on anything else, but I don't remember Rujierd's murder hobo tendencies being glorified. The genocide of his race was literally his entire tribe being mind controlled to kill everyone around them and it haunts him till the present day so I don't know why you're talking about it as if he had any consent whatsoever on the matter and when Rudy realized how little chill he has their relationship gets strained for a good while. I'm not even sure what you mean by them exploiting it |
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TexZero
Posts: 586 |
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And you straight face want to say that the point of Mushoku isn't that everyone is messed up, including the society they set the story in ? We have the subjugation of an entire race of creatures being forced into roles of manual labor with minimal rights (Beastmen), who are often used as the Upper-Classes playthings. The blatant racism and analogs here should be obvious. We have a race of creatures whose sole defining role is being mysterious, advanced and isolated from Human society that has at times been at war with its own (Demon-kin). This is most defintely an analog for how the Western world views the Eastern world. And then we have Human society. The holy then thou default best and inheriter of the world. A culture not built on merit but on class and wealth. Where those who have decided what right for those that have not, and those that shouldn't have the ability to decide. That's before we even jump into the mess that is this world religion. No one in Mushoku is a saint despite the magical classifications and power structures. |
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TexZero
Posts: 586 |
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Naming your group Dead End to exploit the reputation of the clan of demons that was known for hyper violence to the point of genocide. Again though, you're ignoring that. They absolutely glorify the actions Rujerd by putting Superd above others types of demons. They do attempt to humanize Rujerd but nowhere outside of his self loathing and new-found honor code do they attempt to have him actually renounce his violent tendancies and his default action is to kill to save. |
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